Throughout these eleven new paintings, the riotous, saturated colors so characteristic of Rapone’s practice give way to unusually muted hues—”diet colors,” as the artist refers to them—borrowed from the influx advertisements for sensible clothing and tasteful home decor that she began receiving in the mail and on her Instagram feed as she approached the age of 40. Unlike these explicit, often cheeky, invocations of the great works of art history, Rapone’s newest suite of paintings bear the formal influence of a host of artists and artistic movements—most notably, perhaps, with Sideline (after Ben Shahn), in which Rapone draws upon the dynamic use of space, subdued palette, and peculiar orientation of bodies in the work of the pioneering Social Realist Ben Shahn’s Men on a Bench (1940). It may be life that should be criticized; but not my painting of it...To the critical objections to my murals that they are too loud and too disturbing to be in good taste...there is only the answer that they represent the U.S. which also loud and not in 'good taste’...Every detail is a thing I myself have seen and known.”
Author: Editor@juxtapoz.com (Editor -- Evan)
Published at: 2025-09-02 21:42:21
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